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Mazengarb Report

The Mazengarb Report of 1954, formally titled the Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents, is the well-known report of a ministerial inquiry (the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents) sparked primarily by two infamous and well-publicised events in New Zealand's history, one being the Parker-Hulme Murder (subject of the 1994 Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures), the other the June 1954 'Petone incident'. It became known for the inquiry chairperson, stipendary magistrate Oswald Mazengarb.

The committee was appointed on 23 July 1954, and could be seen as hastily convened -- it reported on 20 September, barely 10 days after it completed hearing evidence, 59 days after its appointment, or 55 days after hearings began. On the other hand, it can be often seen, cited, in parts of examples of moral panics both in New Zealand and overseas.

Contents

The Petone incident

On 20 June 1954, shortly after being reported missing by her mother and stepfather, a 15½-year-old girl turned up at the local police station in the in the Hutt Valley borough of Petone (since October 1989, a suburb of the city of Lower Hutt). The report details from page 11:

She stated that, being unhappy at home with her stepfather, she had[...] been a member of what she called a "Milk Bar Gang", which [...] met "mostly for sex purposes"; she [...] was worried about the future of its younger members, and desired the police to break up the gang.

Shortly after, following a police roundup of some of those named, a moral panic ensued in New Zealand, in which the above incident played no small part among several others, including a milk bar murder in Auckland (which resulted in one of the last executions in New Zealand.

The inquiry

An enquiry of New Zealand newspapers of the time, such as the Evening Post, will reveal reports of "youths charged with indecent assault upon, or carnal knowledge of" underage females. Indeed, the inquiry's report notes this occurred "[in] the second week of July 1954".

After a wave of moral panic among the public and newspaper media at the time, the Special Committee was appointed by the Crown shortly after the Petone incident on 23 July, jumping into action only four days later, on 27 July. With what some contemporary commentators considered unreasonable alacrity, the Committee began hearing evidence on 3 August in Wellington, completing its hearings in Auckland on 10 September. Barely ten days later, on 20 September, the Committee had reported, and the report was being printed; Hansard records that the responsible cabinet minister had already sent the report to the Government Printer to be printed before it was actually tabled in Parliament.

Unusually for an inquiry report of that era, the report was, according to Yska (1993) one of the biggest jobs for the Government Printer at the time. Yska even notes that posties complained of the weight when doing something also unusual: the print run was used to distribute the report to every household in the country.

Conclusions and recommendations

The report came up with 27 conclusions and around 20 recommendations. Among the conclusions, in summary:

  • 1 through 4 and 26 dealt with sexual immorality, noting that "immorality has been [organised]", and the unfairness that boys could be charged for indecent conduct, but girls could not be charged.
  • 5 through 9 urged a tightening of censorship laws.
  • 10 urged a "closer bond between school and home."
  • 11 discounted the contribution that coeducation schools had made to "sexual delinquency".
  • 12 urged tightening of a school leaving age of 15.
  • 13 recommended that a school principal should be notified of students under government care.
  • 14 and 21: "The school is not the proper place for fully instructing children about sex." However, the report suggested it was a good place to "listen to addresses or see appropriate films." It also claimed (21) that police found in many incidents that many youths were either "too ignorant" about sex, or knew too much about it.
  • 15 appears to be an attack on the previous Labour government's state housing scheme, believing in "the new housing developments" there were large numbers of young children, without the good modelling of older people and organisations. Similarly, 16 says while community groups were doing their best, "facilities for recreation and entertainment will not cure juvenile delinquency".
  • 17 placed some blame at parents allowing consumption of alcohol at "young people's parties", without specifying the age of the said young people.
  • 18 and 19 thought parental neglect left children feeling unloved, something the Committee believed was conducive to delinquent acts.
  • 20 appears to blame high wages of the time discouraging careful use of money (and thus, the Committee concluded, self reliance).
  • 22 and 23 were concerned with religion and family life -- the "present state of morals in the community has indicated the value of a religious faith" and that decline in family life was due to a lack of respect for the "worth" of religious and social boundaries.
  • 24 blamed "new concepts" coming about due to the destabilising effects of world wars, contraceptives, divorce liberalisation and increasing popularity of sexual relations before marriage, and 25 saw the unaminous recommendation that minors should not be allowed contraceptives.
  • 27 wanted more preventive measures taken by the government on child welfare.

Further reading and references

Quotes unattributed above are from the report. The report has no copyright under NZ law.

More detailed analyses of the report and the resulting events and consequences can be found in both Simpson (1992) and Yska (1993). (Some relevant Google searches also appear to reveal selected bibliographies for further reading.)

Last updated: 07-29-2005 23:35:09
Last updated: 08-16-2005 11:10:30